NEW! Property Settings

The Property Settings page in Rentals United is dedicated to manage your properties from a single place. While all the features of Property Settings are preserved, yet they come in a great new design, improved usability and user-friendly flow.

 

Each channel has its own dedicated Property Page where you can look up and manage your listings as well as edit some information on top of what is in Rentals United. This allows you to, for example, set different property availability for each channel you are connected to as well as define custom settings for each channel. For example, you can advertise your property with a 7% mark-up in Booking.com, with an 8% mark-up in Airbnb and with no mark-up in TripAdvisor.

Property Page allows for the following actions:

  • connect your properties to the sales channel's system,

  • map your properties to the sales channel's listings,

  • deactivate your rates,

  • verify the connection status of the property,

  • set additional settings (if available) that apply exclusively to the selected channel and overwrite the property's data set while defining the inventory, as described in All properties.

In order to access Property Settings, you need to log in to Rentals United and click the Services tab in the main menu. Make sure that you have selected the My Services list and choose the channel you would like to check the Property Settings for. After you unfold the channel section, you will see the Property Settings button.

The Property Page page is displayed for you. Below, see what Property Page may look like for different channels. Note that Property Page are channel-specific and may look differently, depending on the channel and its integration with Rentals United. If you are in the middle of connecting to a channel, it is recommended to see now Channel Integrations for the channel you are connecting to.

Property Settings - Airbnb

See how the new Property Page page looks like for Airbnb, which is a Holiday Rental Website. These channels' characteristics is that you rent a single apartment to your guests. The view consists of the following elements:

  • 5 - Filtering and viewing options

  • 6 - Clusters

In case of Airbnb, one cluster is created per account and contains all properties ascribed to it. Clusters can be folded and expanded. Even while folded, clusters' top bars take colors of the properties' statuses, so that you can easily spot accounts that require your attention without the need to manually click them.

When unfolded, properties in the cluster are sorted by their status. This means that you will see properties requiring your action on top. Other elements are the following:

  • 1 - Airbnb listing name

  • 2 - Number of properties per account

  • 3 - Property name and PropertyID

  • 4 - Property connection status in the channel and mark-up value

  • 5 - Rates (1 rate possible)

Figure 1: Airbnb Property Page.

Property Settings - Booking.com

The Property Settings page in Rentals United is dedicated to manage your listings from a single place. Each channel has its own dedicated Property Settings page where you can look up and manage your listings as well as edit some information on top of what is in Rentals United. This allows you to, for example, set different property availability for each channel you are connected to as well as define custom settings for each channel. For example, you can advertise your property with a 7% mark-up in Booking.com, with an 8% mark-up in Airbnb and with no mark-up in TripAdvisor.

Property Settings provide you with the basic information about your hotel and the connection.

  • 1 - Filtering and viewing options

  • 2 - Clusters which represent an individual hotel. Clusters can be folded and unfolded. Even while folded, clusters' top bars take the colours of the properties' statuses, so that you can easily spot accounts that require your attention without the need to manually click them.

  • 3 - Hotel ID and other hotel details such as name, city and currency

  • 4 - Booking mode in which the stays can be booked, that is instant bookings or booking requests, see here

  • 5 - Connection details such as hotel creation date in the channel, last update date, pricing model set in Rentals United and the connection scope.

    Connection scope indicates the details that we can synchronise to and from Booking.com. If Rentals United has access to a certain area, then you will see the green icon. The connection scope may be different across different users as it is dependent on the access rights the user has given to Rentals United while connecting the channel manager for the first time. The data is refreshed once a day. All areas to which Rentals United can have access are:

    • Reservations

    • Rates and availability

    • Guest reviews

    • Content

    • Photos

    • Messaging

    • Performance data and insights

    • Reporting - guest reporting (no-show, misconduct, stay change)

  • 6 - Listing status which indicates whether the listing (hotel) is live and bookable

  • 7 - Content score which indicates the overall property rating based on the received guest reviews

In Booking.com Property Settings, each hotel is represented by an individual cluster. The hotel clusters present the details about the hotel and its set-up.

  • 1 - Cluster which represents an individual hotel

  • 2 - Booking.com room type which is imported from Booking.com. One hotel may consist of one or more room types.

  • 3 - Booking.com room which is represented by the Rentals United property (property name and property ID). One room type can have one or more properties assigned.

  • 4 - Connection status which indicates whether the room type is live and bookable

  • 5 - Mark-up which can modify the prices before they are passed to Booking.com

Connecting property to the channel

Once you established connection with the channel as described in Connecting to sales channels, now it is time to start advertising your rentals on the sales channel's website. However, before it happens, you need to connect your properties from Rentals United to the sales channel.

Note: The property connection process has various forms and depends entirely on the channel you have established connection with. If you want to learn about the details of integration between Rentals United and any particular sales channel, please see Channel Integrations. If you want to learn what the property connection is about, read further.

Connecting a property to the channel can be compared to copying a property that is already available in Rentals United directly into the sales channel system. This is the first step towards managing your properties from a single place, that is Rentals United. Sometimes, properties get connected by Rentals United or sales channel and there is no need to get you involved in the process. This, however, depends on the channel. In some cases, connecting a property is enough and you only need to activate the connection in Rentals United.

Mapping a property to the channel listing

Mapping a property is a process of creating a direct link between properties in the Rentals United system and listings in the sales channel. This is specifically useful when you have already created your inventory in the sales channel's system and the only thing you need to do is to link these listings to the properties in Rentals United. Through this direct link, your listings will synchronize their calendars, availability and prices with Rentals United. Hence, Rentals United will have control over all properties in all channels, significantly reducing the time you need to spend in the sales channels' dashboards. Below, you can preview different ways of mapping properties.

Figure 2: Assigning a property in Rentals United to the Airbnb External name.

Activating and deactivating the connection

After mapping, remember to activate the connection by clicking the Activate button next to each rate in Property Page. If you decide to deactivate the rates, you can always do this by clicking the Deactivate button which is available after you click the Manage button. Note, however, that depending on the status of other rates or the channel policy, deactivation's results may be different, so be careful with that. Also, deactivation does not remove the connection between Rentals United and the sales channel, so you will be able to activate the connection back any time.

Figure 3: The Activate buttons visible in Booking.com Property Page.

Figure 4: The Deactivate option visible in Booking.com Property Page.

Connection statuses

Rentals United supervises the activity of your rate in the sales channels and displays its status for you in Property Page and Services. If you want to read more about statuses in the Services page, please see Channel connection statuses.

Once you open Property Page for any of the channels you are connected to, you will be able to see the connection status for each of your properties. There are few statuses that can be displayed for you and you can always hover over them to learn about details and further actions.

  • Active - the rate is active in the channel and synchronization runs properly. You receive reservations from the sales channel.

    Figure 5: The Active status in Property Page.

  • Pending - this status may indicate a few possible scenarios:

    • an ongoing action going on in Rentals United, e.g. a listing queued for an update

    • some action to be performed on the sales channel's side, e.g. waiting for the sales channel to validate the property's content

    • Rentals United does not have access to the information if the listing is live in the channel

    Tip: You can hover over the icon and provide the listing URL in the text field. The listing URL is the link to the listing of your rental in this particular sales channel. Note that pasting this URL is not mandatory, as the connection in Rentals United is live without it. If only you find the status annoying, you are welcome to paste the URL. However, if pasting the URL does not resolve the issue, you should contact the sales channel as soon as possible.
    Note: If the Pending status does not update after few days automatically, please contact the Rentals United Support Team.

    Figure 6: The Pending status and the URL placeholder in the sales channel of the PULL type.

  • Inactive - this status indicates that the connection has been deactivated or has never been activated before. If this status is visible, you should have the green Activate button visible after you click the Manage button.

    Figure 7: The connection statuses in Airbnb Property Page.

  • Warnings - important, but not critical availability and rates synchronization error, the connection is not impacted, but availability and rates may not synchronize correctly and there may appear discrepancies.

    Figure 8: The connection statuses in Vrbo Property Page.

  • Error - displayed when there appeared critical property descriptive content synchronization or availability and rates synchronization error and the connection has been severely impacted e.g. a listing has not been created or updated in the channel. You can expand the section and perform the suggested actions to clear the errors.

    Figure 9: The connection statuses in Vrbo Property Page.

API clients

If you are an API client, your property data is sent to Rentals United via API, depending on the connection you have established. If there are any limitations of the connection, they all depend on the implementation you have built.

For more information, please see the API documentation for Rentals United.

Rentals United advises you to verify if all the fields in your connection are coming through properly. The best would be to contact your Onboarding Manager and schedule a call. If you still need help, contact the Rentals United Support Team.